Rat Trap
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: Murdoc's best chance at freedom- and a new job- lies in MacGyver's death. But in true Murdoc style, that death will be long, complicated, meticulously planned, and will have a strong element of chance involved. Poison, he thinks, will work nicely. Mac whump.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: Aluminum Foil

 _Movies have been responsible for a lot of the world's greatest scientific misconceptions. You wouldn't be the first person to be disappointed there's not enough oxygen in space for fiery explosions, that dinosaur DNA only lasts a few million years when preserved in amber, or that catching oneself with a grappling hook while falling from a building would end in severed limbs on the best of days. But sometimes reality is actually a saving grace. Especially when the only guy in the room who might be able to defuse the bomb just took a syringe dart to the thigh and didn't hit the floor instantly because that's not how real-life pharmacokinetics works._

The timer was set to 10 minutes, which was about as much useful consciousness Mac estimated he had left. He grimaced as he took a couple of seconds of that to pull the tiny barbed needle from his leg. The pressurized drug cartridge had discharged the second the needle broke skin, but in case they could get some prints off it later... He broke the needle off against the linoleum floor and pocketed the dart, then turned back to the bomb. If he had those ten precious minutes, he would use them.

"Jack, how are things coming with the evacuation?" He asked into his earpiece.

"Not awesome." Came Jack's harried reply.

"Riley, how evacuated is 'not awesome'." MacGyver asked.

"We're riding at 43% of people still in the buildings, Mac." Riley responded. In the background he could hear her typing furiously from the van across the street. "At this rate it'll take a solid 20 more minutes to get everyone out."

"Not good enough. Jack, get building security on it and make your way to subsection 3, room B95."

"You found the bomb?"

"Yes, and we have..." He looked at the timer. "9 minutes and 23 seconds to disarm it. But whoever set the bomb found me too. They're headed towards the north staircase of building 3. See if you can get them for questioning."

"You fought them off?" Jack asked, impressed.

"No, not quite. It's weird- I'll tell you when you get here." Jack may have responded, but Mac had already turned his full attention to the bomb. It was in a fenestrated clear plastic case bolted to the floor, a tangle of wires and cell phone parts inside with an almost cartoonish clock face counting down to 0. Out of the holes in the sides, additional wires held the box to the floor at tension like a spider web, leaving just enough space for someone to kneel in front. He figured if he tried to move the box or change the tension on the wires, he'd end up atomized. What he needed to do was disconnect the timer, detonator, and anything capable of receiving a transmission. And he needed to do it without moving anything outside the box.

The easiest part- and probably the most important if he actually wanted his full 9 minutes and 3 seconds' worth of bomb defusing time- was disabling the receivers. He couldn't remember…

"Riley, you still there?" Mac asked.

"Here, Mac, what's up?"

"How many layers of aluminum foil does it take to block a cell signal?"

"Gimme a sec." Riley responded. Mac made himself take a breath as he listened to her type. "Just one it looks like."

"Thanks!" Okay, that was solved if he could find some aluminum foil or some other flexible metal.

Then, he needed to get into that box. Disabling the tripwires themselves was probably not an option. There were too many and cutting each of them and fashioning something to perfectly simulate tension would take far too long, so moving the bomb or physically dismantling the casing wasn't an option. He took a couple more seconds to evaluate what he could see of the internal workings of the bomb. Nothing looked heat sensitive, so maybe he could go through the casing instead...

He needed a kitchen. Preferably a fancy one, which a business center like this would almost certainly have for entertaining guests from all over the world. And fortunately, given that he had spent the last half hour ducking room to room inside this building looking for the bomb, he knew where he could get one.

It was up the hallway about four rooms. Mac jogged over, keeping the familiar creeping sense of urgency in check. The bomb was stable unless acted upon by a cell signal, and he'd gone up against explosive devices with significantly less time on their timers than this. He pushed through the kitchen's double doors and surveyed it before digging around. It was empty, but the lights were on. The kitchen staff must have been bored or stressed enough with their day today that they had evacuated without too much urging. Less explaining for him. Hopefully, a nice justified break for them.

Food was still present, half-prepared, on long metal tables. Underneath it, there were drawers and cabinets labeled with a mix of professional-grade labels and printer paper affixed with masking tape. He pulled a roll of aluminum foil from a drawer near the walk-in freezer and with a little more searching, a miniature butane torch from the rack over one of the stainless-steel countertops.

Back in the storage area, the bomb was crossing the 6-minute mark. He knelt in front of it, quickly molding an aluminum-foil tent around the exterior of the box, careful to avoid the wires, while still giving him space to work.

5 minutes left.

He melted a large square out of the polycarbonate resin with the butane torch, trying to get as much of the heated resin to drop onto the clock face and not weld anything to itself that was going to make the next few minutes harder than they had to be.

4 minutes left.

The tripwires were held inside to pressure triggers connected to a miniature processing unit by three tiny green wires. He cut them in one go. No explosion. Cool.

From the side he could see the timer was also connected to a separate detonator with wires, which were hidden beneath the timer. Which was resting on a pressure trigger.

3 minutes left.

Mac ripped the plastic nameplate off the outside of the door and levered it under the timer's corner, compensating manually for the ever-so-slight change in weight distribution. He used that corner to access the wires beneath, cutting them away from the timer itself. He let out a small sigh.

1 minute left.

It was a solid ten seconds before Mac realized the timer was still counting. While no longer physically in contact with the detonator, a discreet antenna that had clearly been added to the device post-manufacture caught Mac's eye. He needed to get it outside the aluminum tent to ensure a wireless signal couldn't trip the detonator.

There was no way he would be able to find something the exact weight of the timer quickly enough to switch it out Indiana Jones style. Unless...

As the seconds ticked down, Mac melted the edge of the casing with the torch and pressed the plastic nameplate into it, welding it in place. He waited a precious ten seconds for the creation to cool, then ever-so-carefully, he moved the timer, a millimeter at at time, upwards until the welded plastic caught and held the pressure trigger in place. Then he ripped the antenna out of the back of the timer and pressed the aluminum tent down over the hole he'd been working through.

The timer still counted. 3...2...1... Mac held his breath.

...0.

No kaboom. Mac waited another four seconds. He let the breath out slowly and let himself fall back onto the floor, letting relief wash over him as the fact that he had survived, that the building was still intact, that he'd managed, one more time, to stop something that should have killed him and everyone around him, slowly sunk into place.

He did it. Awesome.

He tapped his earpiece. "Jack, bomb's neutralized." He said, still laying on the floor like a tired three-year-old after a day at an amusement park. There was a second's pause before Jack answered.

"If my watch's working right, you cut that pretty close." Jack said. "Not that I didn't think you had it in you, Mac, but damn. You know a quarter of those people didn't even evac yet?"

"Yeah and whose responsibility was that, again, Jack?"

"Mine. But to be clear, we all had complete faith in you and no one expects anything of me." Jack retorted. "And speaking of that. I didn't find your guy, Mac. Must have gone up the other stairwell. "Riley, can you get the security footage?"

"Yeah, already got it and the footage from the rest of the building. It'll take a while to go through, though. Might be a long night..."

Then another moment of creeping unease hit Mac. In the haste to save the building from the bomb, he'd forgotten all about the guy with the dart gun. He did a quick check on himself. He was shaking slightly, sweating, dizzy, nauseated. Not awesome.

 _Another thing about disabling someone with a drug- you have no idea how their body will react to it. There's a reason police prefer tasers when talking about less-lethal weapons. In addition to taking too long to manifest, drug effects are largely based on dose, which themselves are based on weight. Too little drug per kilogram, and the target doesn't get disabled. Too much, and they stop breathing. Its impossible to calibrate a perfect dose if you don't know your target's weight, and even then sometimes biology gets in the way._

 _Given this particular situation, I'm gonna guess that someone aired on the "get him on the floor first and worry about overdose second" train. If you're ever in a situation where you know you're going to pass out and will probably go out really hard, the best thing you can do is make yourself safe. If you collapse, "unconscious you" won't be able to catch themself, so get yourself as horizontal as possible before that happens. Being horizontal will also keep some blood in your brain if the drug tanks your blood pressure._

 _"Unconscious you" is also not at all like "sleeping you." Sleeping you can still change positions to keep their airway open. Unconscious you can't, and will suffocate if they're flat on their back or facedown. If you have a few seconds, get into recovery position- lay on your side with your head resting on your lower arm, and put your upper arm and leg slightly in front of you. This will brace you in a position where your airway is naturally open and keep you alive until EMS show up. Also, you'll breath in less puke when your body decides to expel its stomach contents trying to save you._

Mac fished the empty dart out of his pocket and held it in his hand as he pushed himself into recovery position. If EMS could figure out what was in his system, they might be able to treat him better in the case the dose was more than his body could process on his own.

"Mac, you still on comms here?" He heard.

Mac swallowed hard. "Jack I need you to meet me down here as soon as possible. Subsection 3, Room B95." He said, pulling the dart out of his pocket. "The guy we talked about hit me with a syringe dart. It's in my hand. If I'm unconscious when you get here, I need you to call 911."


	2. Chapter 2

"Could have been a dud." Jack suggested, holding the dart up to the light. A still very conscious Mac tried not to make eye contact as he un-bolted the bomb's remains from the floor and packed them up for further examination.

He'd laid on the floor as the feeling of nausea subsided and the feeling of embarrassment grew, realizing that most of the discomfort had probably been induced by adrenaline, not some mystery drug from the syringe dart. By the time Jack and Riley showed up, he'd pretty much realized nothing bad was coming of it. "You know like the one time I bought a pack of twinkies and then one of them didn't have any filling?" Riley frowned at him. "I'm just saying Bad Guy should get his money back."

"I'm not sure." Riley said. "There's no serial number on that dart, and the pressure chamber's medical grade. Not something I could pick up at Cabela's." She was leaning against the shelf behind Mac, watching him work.

"Then Bad Guy just messed up building it." Jack said. "He didn't want anyone to take out his bomb, but also didn't have access to a real firearm, so he lies in wait with his blowgun and-"

"Or it was a trap." Mac suggested, a measure of frustration with the situation just barely evident in his voice. "He knew the Phoenix Foundation was in the area- lots of people have some level of beef with us- and set the bomb and called in the tip knowing one of us would come looking for it and he could take a prisoner. Then the drug took too long and he decided to get out before the kaboom. Except then the drug didn't work at all."

"Yeah, well, its not an adventure unless there's some mystery to it, right Mac?" Jack said grudgingly. Mac stood up, the bomb and dart neatly packaged in their boxes.

"I'm sorry I scared you guys." He said.

"Not an issue." Jack said.

"Same, without saying." Riley echoed. "But we're telling Bozer. So really that's still a punishment."

The hotel was a small-time BnB, two rooms paid through an anonymous Phoenix Foundation account three days prior to their arrival. Mac staked his claim at the larger room's ikea desk, and began to carefully disassemble the bomb. Riley crashed next to him on a wicker window bench, starting her slow trawl through the hours of security footage leading up to the bomb's placement and subsequent removal. Jack laid on the bed closest to the door and pretended to work on a report.

Mac carefully disassembled each piece, placing one after the other on the desk and taking pictures. Once he was finished, he would dust each for prints with graphite and preserve them with scotch tape, which Riley could then check against the various known terrorist databases.

"I'm bored. You guys interested in a late dinner?" Jack asked a while later. "There's a burger place up the street that's probably still open." Mac looked at his watch. Over three hours had gone by and though most of the bomb was disassembled, there was still several more hours' work before he could report out the evidence to the Phoenix Foundation. Might as well break and come back to it with a full stomach.

"Works for me. Riley?" He asked, tapping her on the shoulder. She didn't look up from the screen as she nodded her agreement.

"Give me a second, I'll be right behind you."

Mac stretched and got his jacket just as Riley was closing her computer.

"Hey guys?" Riley said. Mac looked around.

"What's up?"

"What's that?" Riley asked, pointing to an edge of white paper just barely visible inside the partially disassembled bomb.

"What's what?" Jack said. "See I can do it too."

"It was probably used as some kind of insulat-" Mac started. He checked quickly to make sure he'd disconnected all available explosive before pulling it part of the way out. It wasn't an insulator. There was definitely writing on it.

Writing, it appeared, addressed to him personally. Curious, he pulled the paper the rest of the way out.

"Dearest MacGyver." He began, noting a particularly shocked expression on Jack's face. "I would offer a well-wish, but I am afraid the next few days for you are only going to become more unpleasant. I have been contracted by an agency of great renown, which has leveraged your life against my prison sentence. As I am a gaming man, I will engage you in one last game of skill before the end. The syringe dart you entertained today contained a poison of my own devising, which will kill you slowly over the course of the next 72 hours. The poison is more than enough to kill a man, but by the language of sportsmanship, I am offering you this time as a chance to save yourself. Survive, and rest assured that I rot in prison for several years longer. Die, and do so knowing I am all the freer for it. Bon Chance, MacGyver. Yours in Death, Murdoc."

"Son of a bitch." Jack said after a moment. Mac turned slowly to lean against the desk. "That is not how I saw today going."

Mac nodded slowly in agreement and let the paper fall to his side. He'd suddenly lost his appetite as his brain furiously worked over how seriously to take the situation.

"So it really was a trap." Riley said. "You think it's real?"

"Give me a plane ticket and a half hour in Murdoc's cell and I'll tell you if it's real." Jack said.

"Lets hold up a second." Mac said, not quite sure what to say next but knowing Jack's forming ideas were not where he wanted to go with this investigation.

"Mac, if he made a poison, he would have to have an antidote as a bargaining chip. Maybe Jack's not so wrong in wanting to question him." Riley suggested quickly. "I mean, we know where he is and all. This is a pretty risky move for him. He could be waiting to be tortured, or worse…"

"No." Mac said. "He's safe in that respect. He knows I wouldn't let him be tortured." He paused. "And I doubt he has an antidote, or even knows if there is one at all. This isn't Murdoc trying to get me to do something by holding my life hostage. I die and he gets his freedom and a job doing what he does best. If there's an easy way to save my life, he doesn't want to be the one to provide it."

"So there's a possibility what got injected into you is totally, irreversibly fatal?" Jack asked.

"Maybe." Mac said, not quite letting the weight of that word settle in his own brain. "Listen, Murdoc may not play fair, but he does play. He could have hired someone to put a bullet through my head, earning him his freedom instantly. But he didn't- it's not fun for him if he knows without a doubt that he'll win." Riley looked at him doubtfully while Jack still just looked a little freaked. "Guys, the point is that at this moment, there's a big chance no one, including him, knows what the poison is or how to treat it. So that's our goal. I'll call Matty and explain the situation. Then we'll get started."

Mac sighed as he got off the phone. He never felt comfortable explaining situations like this, and Matty's attitude towards anything not going perfectly never helped matters. Fortunately, while she made her displeasure clear, she took employee safety pretty seriously. She'd interrogated him on his current physical health, then promised to have a plane ticket to a Phoenix Foundation-vetted hospital squared away for him within the hour.

He didn't love the idea of a hospital. He still felt fine and had told her as much, but he knew better than to go against Matty's wishes.

"What did Matty say?" Riley asked.

"The mission's going to continue. I'll be headed back tonight. I'll take the bomb parts with me and continue with analysis there." Mac explained. "You and Jack can keep going with the investigation into the would-be bombing. Maybe if we can figure out who built it, we can put together some kind of picture of who's taking Murdoc's orders."

"And?" Riley prompted.

"And what?" Mac asked. Riley fiddled with her phone for a second or two, bringing up a text message.

"Please remind MacGyver to wear biological monitoring until evaluated by a medical professional." Riley read. Mac groaned. "That's from Matty."

"Matty? Our Matty? Worried about one of us not following her orders to the letter?" Jack said, allowing a moment of mock confusion to enter his voice.

"Its part of the protocol for a medical emergency in the field." Mac explained, staving off the embarrassment a few more seconds. "Plus, she'll probably feel better knowing she can at least look at a screen and know I'm alive." Jack rolled his eyes, but Mac could tell he was a little relieved at the prospect too. He dug in the emergency bag and half-reluctantly pulled out the monitoring kit.

 _"Biological monitoring" sounds fancy, but it's mostly stuff you can buy for yourself on Amazon, except probably like 20x more expensive because... Phoenix Foundation. The monitor is a ring and three wireless stickers, two placed on each side of the upper chest, and the last one placed just above the right hip. The ring measures pulse and and percent oxygen saturation. The stickers collectively measure a 3-lead ECG and a respiratory rate, and send that info to the ring, which sends it to an app on my phone which logs it and sends it to a computer at the Phoenix Foundation. Its state of the art, low profile, and 100% overkill unless you're actually dying._

Mac donned the monitor, and activated the application before texting a smily face emoji to Matty.

 _21:38, HR 68/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 19._

The numbers blinked once on his phone's lock screen as he closed it. That felt… oddly comforting and creepy at the same time. He shook his head. If it would make people comfortable to know he was monitored, he could take the few extra minutes to comply with policy.

Then he moved on to something that was actually going to save his life. Figuring out what the hell was in that syringe dart.


	3. Chapter 3

22:03. 4.5 hours post poisoning. HR 63/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 14.

Mac carefully moved the bomb parts to the side of the desk as he set up his workspace. He disassembled the syringe dart the same way he'd started taking apart the bomb, photographing every piece in turn. Then he separated the cartridge that had contained the poison. He pried the top off it carefully without breaking it. There wasn't a lot in there- he'd have to be careful to keep some of it in there for the chemists to take a crack at if his rough tests weren't incredibly fruitful. Still, it might be worth it. "Riley, do you have any cotton balls?" He asked.

"Yeah." She said. "Why?"

"I need to light one on fire."

"As.. one does?" She responded.

"How long have you known this guy, Riles? That's not even the craziest thing he's said today. I'll take the batteries out of the smoke detector."

"See, Jack gets me."

"I'll start planning your wedding." Riley said dryly, fishing in her bag for the cotton balls. Mac let out a snort and turned back to the dart.

 _I didn't exactly steal the creme brulee torch on purpose, but since I have it and a little extra time before a travel planner at the Phoenix Foundation gets a plane ticket together, I'll put it to good use. You remember in 8th grade science class when the teacher explained how we know what the stars are made of by looking at what colors of light they give off most strongly? Well, I'm about to do that on a much smaller scale._

He pulled a tiny wisp of cotton away from the rest, and clamped it between the pliers on his Swiss Army Knife. Then he soaked up a few precious droplets of the liquid inside the syringe dart's cartridge with it. He lit the butane torch.

"Okay, moment of truth." He said. He held the damp cotton over the blue flame, and for a second, a thin streak of the blue became a bright yellow.

"That was cool." Jack said. Mac sat back. "What's it mean?"

"Sodium." Mac said, frowning. "Probably some other elements the test doesn't reason out like oxygen, carbon, or hydrogen."

"Is that... really bad or something?" Jack asked hesitantly.

"No, just really common." Mac sighed. "A lot of substances can be packaged in a solution of sodium chloride, so the presence of sodium doesn't narrow it down much. Everything else that could be present would be in almost anything active in the human body, so…" He shrugged, frustrated. He just wanted to do _something_ to show he was working on the solution too and not just waiting for someone else to save him. "We'll have to get back to a lab to do anything more special-" Jack's phone rang. He looked at the lock screen.

"Its Matty." He said.

"Put it on speaker."

"Hey, Matty, how's it going with that ticket?" Jack asked.

"Not well. Apparently with the bomb threat today they're taking extra precautions and diverting all flights in the next 24 hours." She sounded as though this was both wholly unreasonable and a great inconvenience to her personally. "No new tickets are available. Fortunately the local train station isn't as anxious. The next train to LA leaves at 0400. You'll all be on it."

"All of us?" Riley asked. "I thought Jack and I were staying to help with the case."

"We'll be able to get a relief team into the area by just after 0400. They'll continue with the field investigation while you three get back to Phoenix and continue with the analysis. We'll keep working on it from this end, but unless anything changes, that's the situation."

"Will do." Mac agreed.

"And MacGyver?" Matty asked.

"Yeah?"

"If you withhold any information about your physical condition from either your coworkers or myself, you'll be fired when this is all said and done, copy?"

"...I copy." Mac said awkwardly.

The phone went dead. "Why is everyone so concerned that I don't have my own best interests at heart?" Mac wondered allowed. Riley and Jack looked at each other.

"Probably Hong Kong." Jack suggested. "Maybe Raleigh."

"Manila." Riley added.

"There was that time in Rio."

"Does Copenhagen count?"

"Oh yeah, Copenhagen definitely counts."

"Alright, alright, so I'm not the best at self-preservation." Mac admitted, rolling his eyes. It wasn't that he was bad at self-preservation, he amended in his own head. He just happened to be pretty good at triage, and given his day-job usually uncomplicated injury and other things he wasn't emergently dying of weren't super high on his to-do list, especially during critical portions of missions. He'd take care of them when the world wasn't seconds from blowing up- heck, he liked to think he'd proven that today with the dart. "If it makes you feel better, I promise to tell you the second anything changes."

"Pinky swear?" Jack asked cutely, holding out his little finger.

Mac shook his head. At least Jack was taking the situation well. "Why don't we get a few hours' sleep before we have to catch this train?"

Jack laid in bed for about thirty minutes before deciding he couldn't sleep. "Mac? You awake?" He asked quietly. No response. Mac didn't seem to have the same problem he did with sleeping when a deadline was looming. That, or he didn't care all that much about Jack's insomnia, which Jack felt was inconsiderate.

The light was still on under the door separating his and Mac's room from Riley's. Maybe she wanted some company. Jack pushed himself out of bed and then paused. He didn't really want to leave Mac here alone if something could conceivably go wrong. He picked Mac's phone up off the bedside table. If something went wrong, at least he'd know about it and be able to call someone.

Riley was still awake, trawling through the thousands of hours of video footage. Even though the complex had been relatively new, their video system had been installed when flash drives only held in the MBs of data. The video was in extremely low definition. So far she'd managed to get a few decently enhanced pictures of who Mac might have meant. Nothing, unfortunately, that would be admissible in court.

Jack knocked quietly at the door, then let himself in. "I'm not looking." He announced, shielding his eyes.

"I'm decent, Jack." RIley said, setting her laptop aside.

"Phew, good, I didn't think about that until I'd already opened the door."

"Is... everything okay?" Riley asked.

"What? Oh, yeah, everything's good, I just couldn't sleep." Jack explained. "How about you? Why are you still up?"

"I do my best work at night."

Jack squinted at the laptop. "Anything useful?"

"Maybe. We'll have to match up fingerprints but I don't think our 'shooter' was the same guy who built the bomb."

"Oh yeah?" Jack asked.

Riley sighed. "Which could be utter BS, but I needed to come up with some new info." She said. "I'm having a hard time figuring out anything concrete with this video quality." Jack squinted at the screen.

"You never tried to download porn in the late 90s, did you?"

"I was 10 in the late 90s." Riley replied. "Also I was busy hacking the DXS."

"Hey, we all have our talents."

"So, you wanna order a pizza or something?" Riley asked finally. "I realized we never actually went for dinner."

"That's the most relatable thing you've said-" Jack started, then almost jumped as the phone in his hand buzzed loudly.

 _BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP_

"That's a terrible ringto-." Riley said.

"Its Mac's phone." Jack said urgently, looking at the screen which had lit up to show Mac's vitals, one number squared off in yellow and blinking. "What do we do?"

"Lemme see." Riley said, taking the phone from him.

 _23:45, [HR 48/BRADY], SPO2 100%, RR 12._

"Why is the H.. R thing blinking?" Jack asked, a small amount of panic in his voice. He would be the first to admit he had no idea what those numbers meant, but yellow and flashing had never once meant good things. it looked like a problem, one he knew he didn't know how to solve.

"His heart rate's low." Riley said.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know…" Riley said. She knew CPR, but Mac's heart rate was low, not gone, which it needed to be for that. "Umm... the rest of them are fine, maybe we should call Matty, or…" But Jack had already burst back through the door.

"Mac, you okay buddy?" Riley followed him through the door as he descended on Mac's sleeping form, shaking his shoulder hard enough to break something.

Mac's hand came out from under the covers and caught Jack's wrist, stopping just short of flipping the older agent onto the floor. "Wha-" He sat up blearily. "Jack, what's going on?"

"I… you…" Jack started, surprised. "Your phone, it…" Mac looked over at Riley.

"Translation?"

"Your phone said something was wrong. Jack panicked."

"Oh please, like you weren't worried too. I saw your face." Jack said, pulling Mac's phone out of Riley's hand and showing the screen, now dormant, to Mac. "Look at this."

Mac opened the lock screen, still slightly confused. His vitals came up as they did before.

 _23:48, HR 74/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 18._

Nothing was blinking or beeping now. Jack looked indignant. "There was something wrong. That one was yellow." He explained, pointing to the heart rate icon.

"Looks okay now." Mac said warily.


	4. Chapter 4

05:30, 12 Hours post poisoning. _HR 85/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 20._

None of them had slept much, least of all Mac. They'd gotten pizza from the all-nght place around the corner from the hotel, and basically waited until it was time to head out to the train.

Now, an hour and a half into the train ride, Riley and Jack were both asleep in their seats. Mac was the only one who couldn't, but that was fine. There wasn't much he could do on the train, and he liked the quiet anyway.

He'd started not feeling well a few minutes after the train had begun its early morning rumble toward the LA train station. To be honest, it had taken him a while to sell it to himself that is was the poison and not the lack of sleep or just that he was sitting backwards in a train that was making him feel crappy. He'd walked back and forth to the bathroom a couple of times, but hadn't been able to vomit. Admittedly, the general grossness was better than he thought he would feel at this point, but it still wasn't welcome.

The sun was coming up and he tried to distract himself a little with the sunrise. A long golden-orange streak at the base of the horizon, gently growing brighter and wider until the actual sun was visible as a half-circle, then a circle. Mac let his eyes close briefly, then opened them again. Trying to distract himself wasn't helping. The only thing that had come of it was a directionless sense of urgency. He needed to be _doing_ something, or this would be the last sunrise he saw, the last time he would see his friends sleeping on public transit, the last time he would-

He stopped himself. That was absurd and defeatist and overall not helpful. He needed to sleep, to recoup, and then to science the heck out of the problem until he figured out how to save himself.

The nausea was getting worse. He got up, a little unsteady in the rocking train car. Almost everyone on the train was sleeping or else more interested in their electronic devices, which was also okay with him. He was thankful Jack and Riley had fallen asleep. If he could have another hour or so where he didn't have to detail his symptoms to them, he would be happy.

The bathroom was open. He locked the door and sat on the toilet, looking at his reflection in the small, warped mirror over the sink. He looked exhausted and pale, his face a little greasy from his lack of shower. His stomach growled. He leaned his head forward onto the cool plastic wall of the compartment.

He enjoyed the coolness for several minutes until the train hit a seam in the track and his shoulder jostled forward into the edge of the tiny sink. He snapped his eyes open at the sudden pain- more than he was expecting. He stood up unsteadily, frowning. His reflection looked back at him, confused and uncomfortable. If this whole thing could just stop happening, that'd be great.

But it _was_ happening, and he would just have to deal. He pulled his jacket off and hung it on the tiny hook on the folding door. He washed his face and hands, ran some water through his hair. He felt a little better.

Then something caught his eye. At first he thought he must have leaned against something yesterday, or that there was something on the floor he'd laid on when he thought the syringe contained a drug. There was something dark sticking out just under his shirt, on his skin. Mac pulled the sleeve of his shirt up at looked in confusion at a large bruise. Not new, not from a few seconds ago. This was something that had happened yesterday, but…

He hadn't gotten in any fights yesterday. The only place he would expect there to be a bruise was on his thigh from the dart, and he didn't feel ambitious enough to look there now. The bruise was just big enough to be concerning, roughly in the shape of a partial handprint. And he had no idea how it had gotten there except… maybe ghost?

"Mac, you in there?" Jack's voice came through the door. Mac pulled his shirt sleeve down instinctively and grabbed his jacket.

"Just a minute." He said.

"You've been in there for like 20 minutes, you okay buddy?"

"I'm good, I'll be out in a second." He flushed the toilet to make it seem like he was actually doing something legit instead of just standing there looking at himself in the mirror. He pulled the door open to Jack's concerned face.

"You look like crap, Mac." Mac frowned.

"Thanks, Jack, I feel like it."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"You were asleep."

"So what's wrong?" Jack asked, a little irritation in his voice. "And tell me everything, Mac, okay? We need to know what's going on, even if you want to be brave, which is stupid, by the way." Mac raised and eyebrow.

"I feel like I'm going to puke and I have a weird bruise." He said, trying to shrug it off as something less than anxiety inducing.

"That's me on a lot of Saturday mornings." Jack said.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason I don't drink, Jack." And a reason, he thought, why he didn't like talking about being sick. People got concerned, then joked to cover that concern, and he didn't really feel up to indulging that humor. He didn't care that that was no kind of retort. He was tired, and stressed, and just wanted to get something over with. What that was, though, he had no clue.

Matilda Webber walked quickly down the long hallways of LA's Supermax. She was getting tired of these visits. There was never any variety- always the same hallways to the same cell to the same sneering face. It was no different today, except that she was slightly angrier than usual.

The guard swiped his ID badge at the door, allowing her entry to the blank interrogation room. Across the bolted-down table, Murdoc sat chained to his seat. He leaned forward as Matty approached and climbed on to the chair across from him.

"Matilda!" Murdoc started jovially. "To what do I owe the pleasure- its been, how long? Almost a week hasn't it?"

"Cut the crap, Murdoc."

"Touchy." Murdoc scolded playfully. "How's the team? Bozer still in hospital?"

"I'm not here to trade pleasantries."

"Then what, my dear, do you want?" Murdoc said, settling back into the seat as far as his restraints would allow.

"I think you know." Matty prompted. Murdoc smiled, pretending to be thoughtful.

"I would guess it has to do with MacGyver."

"It does."

Murdoc leaned forward again as though he were about to share a secret. "No comment." He whispered gleefully.

"I know one more murder charge doesn't matter much to you in the grand scheme of your multiple life sentences, Murdoc, but in here, all alone, you must be itching to tell someone what possible reason you have to go back on your threat to kill MacGyver in person."

"I already told you that, Matilda. In writing, I believe." Murdoc said. "Come back with some interesting questions next time."

"See, I don't think it would be enough for me." Matty said, changing her tone. "You must have a lot of plans for getting out of here, Murdoc. Why would you sacrifice feeling MacGyver's final heartbeat, hearing the breath leave his chest for the last time." She leaned in closer to him, drawing it out. "He's your arch nemesis, Murdoc. Why would you waste his death on a job interview." Murdoc looked almost uncomfortable.

"Don't mock me, Matilda." He said. "Its not about witnessing MacGyver's death. Knowing it was _my_ plan, carried out to my _exacting_ specifications. That, my dear, is what makes his death my work." He paused, as though considering how much he wanted to tell her before continuing. "I planned the bait, the trap, the exact specifications of the poison. How it would feel in his veins, how fast it works." He stopped again, and stared straight into her eyes. "Do you know why rat poison doesn't kill rats quickly, Matilda?" Matilda shook her head.

"Enlighten me."

"Because they're smart. Not unlike our intrepid agent MacGyver." Murdoc explained. "If you poison a rat, and it dies, its friends will learn not to frequent the same trap. Meanwhile, if you poison a rat, and it dies days later, its friends won't be able to connect the poison to the source."

"Should I be worried about my other agents, Murdoc?" Matty asked.

"Oh no, Matilda. I just like the story." Murdoc assured her. "It's the poetry of it. Plus, this way I get to plan his thoughts to the letter, the _moment_. For example, what time is it, Matilda?"

Matty looked at her watch. "0735." She said, unsure she actually wanted to hear what was about to come out of the psychopath's mouth.

"Right now, he's realizing the poison is real, and that its killing him, but slowly. He's wondering about all the horrible symptoms his death will contain." Murdoc detailed gleefully. Matty looked unconvinced. "But there is a ray of hope to him still. Right now he's sure he'll figure it out. That's MacGyver for us, right? His faith in science is so strong."

"What kind of poison could outsmart such a dedicated scientist?" Matty asked, her eyes as full of mock wonder as she could make them.

"That, Matilda, is something even I don't know." He said. "It pained me to leave that part to chance, but I know my weaknesses. I brag."

"Come now, Murdoc."

"I'm serious. Like I said, I detailed the _specifications_ of the poison. Not the poison itself. I would have liked to make it, alas, but I had to leave that honor to my chemist."

"Just so you couldn't tell me the poison?"

"Or the antidote, if there was one." Murdoc said. "Don't look so disappointed, Matilda. You're watching art."

"I'd be happier if I knew who the chemist was."

"Hmmm" Murdoc said. "That doesn't exactly serve my interests, does it?"


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5: Occupational Health**

09:30: 16 hrs post poisoning. HR 88/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 16

"What the hell did you three let yourselves be dragged into this time?" Matty demanded. Mac, Jack, and Riley had returned to the Phoenix Foundation around the same time their director was returning from Supermax. The instructions relayed to the three of them from the Phoenix chauffeur had been, in no uncertain terms, that as long as MacGyver was capable of standing upright and walking forward under his own power, the three of them were to be in her office when she returned.

It was something Mac had happily obliged her. He'd managed a few hours' sleep on the rest of the train ride in, and while he still felt basically like crap, some of the exhaustion had lifted.

"See, I'm not sure 'let' is really the most accurate term for what happened..." Jack started to explain.

"Then what would be, Jack?" Matty asked, rounding on him. "Because there's a pun about intelligence work I'm thinking of throwing around." Jack was quiet, but angry. Matty took a breath, holding them all in suspense for several more seconds.

"As it stands, I met with Murdoc this morning. He basically confirmed what his letter said. He's interested in MacGyver's death because he believes it will lead to his release. So as of right now, we have to assume that all threats are viable. He very well may have someone he can communicate with on the outside. Prison officials are checking into that as we speak. They are also further restricting his access to the outside world and varying his schedule. In the event a breakout is staged, he will not take part." MacGyver noticed she didn't quite mention the terms on which a breakout would be staged.

"What about Mac?" Jack asked.

"We have a hospital room secured for him at GenMetro. An ambulance will be here to take him over as soon as we finish this conversation." Matty confirmed.

"I can't go to GenMetro now." Mac protested.

"Mac, you kinda look like crap." Riley started.

"I can deal with that. I can deal with feeling like crap too as long as I'm not dying of it." He protested. Jack looked unconvinced. "Honestly, guys, if I walked into an emergency department right now, they'd laugh at me. My vitals are stable, there's nothing going on symptomatically I can't manage from here. And I'm much more useful here anyway, working in the Phoenix lab and trying to figure out what's in my system from this end. Once there's a treatment plan in place, or my life is actually threatened, I promise I'll go to the hospital. But until then, I'd just be taking up a bed from someone who needs it." Mac finished.

"How long did you work on that?" Jack asked.

"Longer than I care to admit." Mac said. "But I think even you guys can agree I'd be more helpful here."

Matty scowled. "I don't agree with it, _at all,_ but I'll allow it." She paused. "What I can't allow is for you to determine what a 'life threat' is. If you want to stay here, you'll check in with the occupational health nurse every 6 hours. It will be her determination on when you go to the hospital. Which you will happily oblige."

"Reasonable." Mac agreed, nodding slowly.

"Good." Matty said. "I've already called. She's expecting you." Mac looked puzzled.

"Oh please." Matty said, rolling her eyes. "How long have we known each other? I had to show the board I gave you the option of going to a hospital right away, but let's face it, it's you."

"Thanks, Matty."

"Go. Now. Before I change my mind."

On her second anniversary at the Phoenix Foundation, Gayle Sawyer had gotten an elaborate tattoo of a cross on her forearm. The tattoo had started as a recognition of her faith, but she'd quickly had it amended to include the winged Caduceus under one of the cross's arms and the Star of Life beneath the other.

It quickly became as much a symbol of her callings as it was one of rebellion against the industry built up around them. Sitting where it did, just below the reasonable end of a scrub sleeve, the image cut her off from any type of hospital employment for the rest of her years. A fact she was entirely comfortable with, even if it made her mother, herself an emergency department nurse in Virginia, very, very concerned.

The next year, she'd had her septum repierced and had dyed her hair an obnoxious blue-green tye-dye, largely because the Phoenix Foundation gave no craps about dress code and she felt it looked good on her. She liked walking out of work, a butch thirty-something, deceptively fit, wrapped in men's black scrubs with her hair and tattoos glaringly visible, to the reactions of people who by contract couldn't be as creative with their bodies.

The Phoenix Foundation paid triple what any of her hospital employers had, and the job, though officially as the head of occupational health and safety, somehow managed to satisfy her need for adrenalin with its near-constant lab accidents, lockdown situations, and occasional field work.

And the Phoenix Foundation had a pretty cool looking setup for their employee health clinic too. It was a cement basement room with a front triage area good for blood draws and flu shots, and behind that, separated by a wall of cubbies, was a row of three cots separated by curtains. In the back was a wall of hospital-style supply tubs full of first aid gear. A dynamap and an emergency kit with oxygen, a BVM, IV supplies, AED, and basic airway equipment sat opposite the cots.

It looked like an extraordinarily small hospital floor, but Gayle had never really understood the extent to which the organization had gone to make it one. Overall, she decided, the place was good if you got sick halfway through the workday and needed to lie down for an hour before driving home, or if you were in cardiac arrest. Anyone in between would go to GenMetro or get a note saying to follow up with their primary care provider.

Galye spun around in her office chair, forcing a manila file folder back into a cubby behind her desk. The file was labeled simply as "MacGyver" with the first name, save a lonely "A," scratched out in permanent marker, and an employee number.

Like those of other field agents, it was a file she'd been familiar with for some time. Usually, this familiarity came in the form of flu season vaccination campaigns or travel health needs. In A. MacGyver's case that was of course true, with the added bonus that he also frequently called her in the middle of the night for gunshot wounds and snakebites.

His knock on her office door came exactly ten minutes after she'd been told to expect it, and exactly five before she would have called Matty to tattle.

"You're late, MacGyver." Gayle greeted.

"Needed to request some lab space." Mac explained. "How're things?"

"Around here? Nothing horrible." She shrugged. "Well, one of my favorite agents just got poisoned by a psychopath and now won't go to the hospital, so he's probably going to kick it, but other than that..." She pushed herself out from behind her desk to face him confrontationally in the doorway.

"You ever considered going into pediatrics with that level of tact?" Mac asked.

"Been there, done that, if you count emergency work. See, the kids would respect it. The parents would about kill me." She shook her head and then turned away from him to drag the dynamap up to the desk. "Its why I'm so glad Matty and I have similar opinions on internal customer service."

Mac rolled his eyes. "Its good to see you again, Gayle."

"Good to see you too, Mac. Go ahead and sit there for me a second, will you?" Mac sat in the chair across her desk and she applied the dynamap's blood pressure cuff.

"So I know you've got those fancy stickers and stuff on you, and I've been collecting that information since your phone's been sending it out, but I like my own machine." She explained. "Plus, mine takes blood pressure." She let the machine automatically result his vitals and wrote it down on a card for his file.

10:08: BP 122/78, HR 75, RR 18, SPO2 100%

"So you've been collecting everything?" Mac asked, remembering the previous evening. "Do you know what happened last night?"

"Maybe" Gayle said. "What happened?"

"Jack woke me up kind of frantic, said the machine said my heart rate was low." Mac reported, more curious than concerned. Gayle shook her head.

"The overnight guy saw that too. Most likely what happened is you're a reasonably young, fit guy, who's heart rate naturally falls below what the computer is programmed to make a fuss about." Gayle explained. "Does that every night without a problem, just that most of the time your concerned friends aren't watching your monitor."

"I was kinda hoping it would give some insight as to what's wrong with me." Mac said, a little disappointed.

"We'll keep checking them. So far, they're perfect, and that's good, because usually they're the last things to change if something starts going wrong." Gayle explained. "Besides, a single set of vitals tells me nothing. You're a scientist, you know its not the data but the trend that makes the study. We'll keep rechecking. In the meantime, I'll take some blood, and I need you to tell me everything that's happened."

In the end, there wasn't a lot to explain. She took a look at the site left by the syringe dart, and updated his emergency information and medical history in case of an unexpected emergency. He described the lingering feeling of nausea and non-specific malaise that didn't feel especially deadly, but that he was sure was the first effects of the poison. Gayle kicked the trash can out from under her desk towards Mac as he talked.

"I can't give you any meds right this second, but give me half an hour or so and I can get an order from my medical direction at GenMetro." She explained. "We've got some things here."

"I don't need anything." Mac said quickly. He felt bad, but not bad enough to actually take anything prescribed by a doctor. Not yet, at least.

"I'm talking zofran and tylenol, Mac, not dilaudid." She clarified. "And its not like you'd be saving me a call. I report everything to him anyway." She fished something out of her scrub pocket and handed it to him. Alcohol wipes. Mac looked puzzled. "I don't like you thinking you're the only one who improvises crap around here. If you start feeling like you're going to hurl, try these." She paused. "And by 'try' I mean smell. It helps, swear to whatever deity you hold dear, but I can't tell you how many people have tried to suck on them."

She took his blood, then reminded him to tell her if he took anything himself or if anything changed, to keep drinking water, and to come back in 6 hours along with the appropriate threats that she would call Matty, etc… etc… if he didn't.

She watched him leave. He would come to his own conclusion, and, she told herself, she was comfortable with that. She just hoped he would make the decision to go to the hospital before she was in a position to force the issue. She prepared the tubes of blood to send to an offsite lab, scrawled her note into the paper chart, then copied it word for word into an electronic version on the computer, which she sent to her medical direction before calling him to report the situation in its entirety. It wasn't like the busy work was any less on the occupational health end of things, she thought.


	6. Chapter 6

Sitting in the world's most obvious creeper van, Bradley Roswell, professional poor life choice maker, was panicking. He'd never really asked for a life of crime.

It had just kind of happened.

Well, he supposed, in retrospect, the multiple robberies of high-security laboratories hadn't _just happened_. Those he had planned and executed with the utmost precision. But when every legal, nonviolent channel to get certain precursor chemicals had failed him (and, he would add, he'd definitely tried everything possible that fit in those categories), he'd had to do what he'd had to do. And what he'd had to do had reasonably ticked some law enforcement professionals off.

But since getting out of prison, he was a changed man with a steady job (albeit not one anywhere near a lab) and was working on the family thing just as soon as he could get up the money to move him and his girl to a nice neighborhood. Three days ago, things were really looking up.

And then Murdoc had come knocking. Metaphorically, at least, with an invitation to visiting hours. Which, again in retrospect, he'd made the conscious choice to travel the nearly 80 mile round trip to attend.

And then a day later come up with a poison.

And inject it into a federal agent.

Which, admittedly, was a felony even if the man didn't die.

And now, watching a hospital laboratory van pull away from the Phoenix Foundation deliveries entrance, he realised he was still screwed either way, because even though the poison (a specially modified hydroxycoumarin) probably wouldn't show up in routine testing or a drug screen, its effects, and thus a pretty glaring way to treat it, very well could.

So the poor agent's life would be saved.

And Murdoc would find someone else to kill the both of them.

Even if he gave it up now and turned himself in, his death was, he reasoned, more likely than not. Protective custody, at least where Murdoc was concerned, didn't mean much.

Unless MacGyver died without a connection to him, in which case he was scott free. He took a deep breath and pleaded with himself not to make another stupid choice, and then slammed the van into a U-turn anyway.

1530: 23 hours post poisoning. HR 90/NSR, SPO2 100%, RR 21

 _You know how everyone laughs at CSI-type shows for how fast the forensics get done? Well, in the case of mass spectroscopy, the actual process of running the machine only takes about 20 minutes. The real issue is getting everything set up beforehand. You have to make the sample perfect or the machine itself won't like it. That means, usually, figuring out how big the molecules of the sample are, and separating the really big ones out for a separate sample. Once that's done, and the machine runs, you have to analyse the results too. The reading comes out as a graph of peaks and valleys. You have to match that graph up with another graph that has the compound you're looking for on it. Which is fine if you know what you're looking for. If you don't, that part takes hours._

Mac's timer went off for the second time that hour. He silenced it, then glared at the mostly empty water bottle sitting next to him. He'd gone through all the normal ones- the cyanides, the antiarrhythmic drugs, the opioids. He was pretty sure he'd already be dead if it were any of them, but it was sort of a comfort to see those tests come back negative.

He was sitting in one of the Phoenix Foundation labs, staring at a computer screen, trying desperately to keep his mind on the work. He was finding himself limited to the poisons he could think of, if only he could have access to a pharmacist or toxicologist. There had to be someone in this building who had some specialty in that. The cover of being a think tank meant the place actually had to churn out science occasionally, and there were dedicated scientists working to that end.

The nausea was still there, and while he was thirsty, he was thirsty in the way one was when they had a cold. Just in the background, while the idea of actually eating or drinking seemed too uncomfortable to actually complete. He forced himself to drain the rest of the bottle, then got up to refill it.

He'd barely gotten off the stool when the room spun and he had to catch himself against the table. It stopped quickly, fortunately, but he stood still with his forearm resting against the surface of the work bench until all the dizziness had dissipated and his vision cleared. He could feel sweat had broken out on his face at some point during the ordeal.

No one had seen him nearly fall. He'd requested the lab to himself, but the episode was still unsettling. He made sure he was alright and shakily stood up straight. It was almost time to check in with Gayle anyway and he admitted that he needed a nap if he was going to get any quality work done. Maybe Riley would be willing to take a shift comparing spectroscopy charts or looking for someone who knew more than he did about poisons while he rested in employee health. He hated the idea of sleeping when he had so little useful time left to figure this out, but he was edging towards miserable.

And, hey, maybe it was all in vain and the hospital lab had actually figured it out already.

The walk down to employee health was less fun than the wanted to admit. He knocked on the door to Gayle's office and she looked up, immediately concerned.

"You're early." She said, raising an eyebrow as if looking for an explanation.

"There's just no pleasing you, is there, Gayle?" He said.

"You going to a hospital would please me a lot."

"You might get your wish sooner than later." Mac said warily.

"What happened?" Gayle's tone of voice switched quickly from teasing to business. She pushed the chair out for him and kicked the trash can toward it. "Sit before you tell me. You look like you're gonna fall over."

"Almost did." Mac admitted, lowering himself into the offered chair.

"And?"

"I didn't." He said it very matter of factly. In any other context, Gayle would have assumed the vagueness in those words was fishing for some level of sympathy. She didn't play the 'oh poor baby' game and it made her irrationally angry when people tried fishing for i. But this was MacGyver. He got a pass unless he tried to milk it.

"You're gonna need to be a little more specific."

"I got up and got really dizzy for a second. I got better, I made it the rest of the way here with no issue, but I still feel like crap. I was hoping to take a nap before I went back upstairs to keep working." Gayle frowned as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Mac's arm.

"You throw up at all?" She asked. Mac shook his head.

"I've felt like it a few times."

"Are you drinking water?"

"Trying to." Mac said. "I couldn't eat anything." She looked at the remains of some sweat on his forehead. He was paler now than he had been. Still alert, no overt problems with orientation. Again, if he had just been the average patient, she wouldn't think much of it.

But he wasn't, and she had to.

"That should be okay, but I have to cover my bases. I'm going to start taking blood sugars too, just in case whatever it is is tanking that."

15:54, Temp 98.8, BP 112/85, HR 96, SPO2 99%, RR 20, BG 89

Gayle looked at the vitals, and looked Mac up and down one more time. Mac looked at the screen on the dynamap. "Everything okay?" He asked.

"Technically everything is within normal limits." She explained hesitantly, unsure of how to describe how the changes within the last 6 hours made her slightly wary without going into a lot of pathophysiology she hadn't had since nursing school. "Your heart rate and respiratory rate are edging up there, though, and that's been a trend this whole time. If they get any higher, I have to recommend you go to the hospital." Mac nodded.

And, another thing. The lab called about an hour ago and said the blood work never got to the hospital. I made a few calls and it seems like the driver who was driving the blood over was in an accident."

"How bad?" Mac asked, feeling instantly guilty.

"Well, Mac, bad enough they weren't able to deliver the blood."

What she hadn't told MacGyver was that it likely wasn't an accident. She still had some contacts in EMS who liked to gossip, and a couple who owed her favors. By one such contact, the driver of the van that had all but T-boned the hospital's specially outfitted lab minivan hadn't stuck around at the scene, and not only was he not there for questioning, all blood and tissue samples in the vehicle had come up missing.

She'd re-drawn Mac's blood, and repackaged it as he picked the last cot in the row to nap on. She was glad he was staying here. The high-ish heart rate didn't mean much on its own besides being weird for someone of Mac's fitness level. That could be stress or discomfort or too much caffeine. Combined with the paleness, sweat and the dip in his systolic blood pressure, though, it made her uncomfortable in an utterly fundamental way.

She queued up the only monitor currently transmitting on her screen and called medical direction to report her most recent assessment. The second MacGyver's resting heart rate hit 100, she was calling an ambulance.


	7. Chapter 7

Roswell looked at himself in the mirror of the Phoenix Foundation's first floor restroom. The van's air bag had broken his nose, and that was not fun. The bleeding had stopped with considerable effort, but the swelling was now significant enough he was getting looks.

It was, however, working in his favor. They weren't seeing _him_ as much as they were seeing a walking broken nose in a lab coat. Having made the decision of MacGyver's death over his own, he now had to follow through. It wouldn't be long before a re-draw would be sent, and a second "accident" wouldn't be easy to explain. And it would hurt. Overall a terrible plan.

But, fortunately, he'd had another one. It was 2017 and public buildings no longer allowed smoking. Federal buildings and most workplaces didn't even officially allow smoking on the properties, though most would turn a blind eye as long as you were reasonably outside and away from any obvious security cameras. And there were always hold outs who needed the cigarette at some point during their workday.

He'd watched one of the less conspicuous side entrances for an nearly an hour before a man roughly his hair and skin color slipped out of it. The man, now an unknowing target, propped the door, squinted in the sunlight for a moment before reaching into his pocket to get his pack of cigarettes. He immediately took a syringe dart to the thigh.

The man was no trained agent, that was for sure. Instead of ducking down and attempting to find cover or duck inside to call for help, he'd appeared stunned for a moment, then looked around to see where the dart had come from. In his moment of confusion, Roswell sprung forward, pushing the man into the bushes, where he easily handcuffed him and stuffed a wadded rag into his mouth. Then, covered by the landscaping, he'd mostly just sat on the man until he stopped struggling and his eyes drifted shut. At that point, Roswell'd pulled the rag out of the man's mouth and uncuffed him, then relieved him of his lab coat and security badge before rolling him into his side.

Then he'd slipped inside, brushing mulch from the coat.

He washed some of the dry blood off his face, gingerly holding a damp paper towel to the swelling. He let his eyes close, feeling an unpleasant pounding sensation behind them. Not the first time he'd had a broken nose, but this was shaping up to be the worst. If he got out of here without being caught, he'd want to get to an emergency room for an x-ray as soon as was feasible.

"You okay, buddy?" Someone had walked in without him noticing. His eyes snapped open, a little sheepishly.

"Yeah, tripped, if you can believe it." He lied casually. "Fortunately all I was carrying was a window box." He indicated a ground-in patch of dirt on the coat's sleeve. "But I'm good, no worries."

The intruder went about his business as Roswell tossed the paper towel into the garbage. If he could find some ice that would be better, but he had a job to do.

Murdoc had asked for a poison that killed over the course of 72 hours. Which, technically speaking, he had delivered. The poison's peak, the point when it was most effective, was close to that time frame. In all reality, though, depending on his activities since the injection, he would likely die much sooner than that.

There was a lot left to chance with this poison, which had been another one of Murdoc's stipulations. In hindsight, though, his actual choice of poison had been a poor one- and the reason MacGyver had to die if he wanted to live. While it would be deadly in a field situation, it was treatable in a hospital one. Should have gone with a 20g tylenol dart, he thought. That would have met the criteria and Mac would still die slowly but there'd be absolutely no way to save him if they figured it out late. A lot less stressful over all.

He had to stop beating himself up over it. Mac could still die, as long as he was in that field situation. The agent was stubborn enough to still be in the building. All Roswell had to do was get the building to lock down (not difficult in government-themed locations), and voila, no access to medical care- free wilderness in the heart of LA.

The hard part was behind him. He was in, he just needed to make an emergency.

1730, 25 hours post poisoning. HR 99, SPO2 98%, RR 26

 _A while ago, I talked about all the things humans can't do when they're unconscious. You want to know something we can usually manage? We can vomit. The body assumes if you're out of it, it's because of something you ate, so getting everything out of you becomes a top priority. One side-effect of this is that if you're really out of it, you can end up breathing it in. Which will probably kill you faster than whatever's in your stomach._

Fortunately, MacGyver woke up just in time to push himself to the edge of the bed and vomit over the side. Once he was sure he was done, he rolled back over onto his back, panting. Sweat was beading on his skin, making the cement room seem colder than than it should have been. An alarm was going off somewhere. From the other side of the room, he heard the creak of Gayle's office chair as she got off it and paced back to the cot.

"Hole in one." Gayle said in a mock-congratulatory tone. Mac opened his eyes to see her walking towards him. His mouth tasted like bitter pennies. He was still breathing hard and the alarm was still going off. "I mean, traditionally 'put the bucket by their head and hope for the best' isn't usually the most effective method of vomit management but you seem to have-" She stopped talking suddenly as she got to the bedside. Mac looked blearily up at her, trying to piece together why she had stopped talking. "Mac, I'm going to call the ambulance."

"What?" He asked. He felt he should get a pass on the vitals thing, at least until the burst of adrenalin that came with waking up with his stomach contents spilling out waned. He just needed a little more sleep, maybe some more water if he could keep it down. "Why?" He rolled over to look at the 5-gallon paint bucket Gayle had placed by his head while he'd slept. In the bucket was a semi solid, dark brown mass. A bout of dizziness came over him again and he made himself roll back onto his back, spots flitting in front of his eyes for a moment. The amount of vomit was interesting, he thought. He hadn't eaten anything he could remember...

"You saw that, right? That's what partially digested blood looks like. And unless you've recently converted to vampirism, you're bleeding pretty badly." Mac swallowed. "You can wash your mouth out, and then I need a set of vitals and for you to answer some questions the best you can for me, okay?" She lifted the head of the bed and seemed to consider him for a moment, then handed him a styrofoam cup with some water in it. "Swish that around and you can spit it in the bucket. For now I won't have you drink anything." She instructed.

Mac took the cup and shakily did as he was told. He didn't feel as nauseated anymore, just dizzy and weak and more tired than he ever had in his life. But now fear had cropped up into the picture too. Bleeding, she'd said. The blood presumably running into his stomach and getting digested there. So internal bleeding. He might not know a lot about clinical medicine, but he'd found himself in enough crappy situations to know that internal bleeding wasn't awesome. Especially at that volume.

Gayle returned with a wet washcloth and the dynamap. She gave him the cloth to wipe his face and attached him to the machine as the alarm stopped going off in the background. "Can you tell me your name?" She asked. Mac frowned.

"MacGyver."

"Where are we?"

"Phoenix Foundation."

"What day is it?"

"Friday." Gayle nodded, looking relieved. The dynamap dinged. Gayle frowned, then cycled the machine again. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes. I learned a lot from it. Now focus- Any feeling like you can't catch your breath, chest pain, blurred vision, or feeling like you're going to pass out?"

Mac swallowed again. He was definitely breathing faster than usual, but not because he felt like he was suffocating. "Not much, just a little dizzy, and cold." Gayle nodded.

"I'll get a blanket, and if you're done with the water I'll lay your head a little flatter. I'm still keeping it slightly up in case you feel like you have to vomit again." He noted she had said "vomit" and not "puke" which made him uneasy in a way he couldn't explain. "And this will be easier to aim for." She said, handing him one of those blue vomit bags emergency departments seemed to specialize in.

1750: A+Ox3, BP 99/65, HR 119, RR 32, SPO2 98%

Gayle pulled a Phoenix-issue cell phone out of her scrub pocket and dialed 911 as she went to get the blanket. The call didn't connect. She tried again. The icon in the corner of the phone's screen read "no service". Even though she was in a basement office of a mostly-cement building, she'd never had trouble dialing out, so the loss of service was a little odd. Frowning, and making a mental note to get it checked with Phoenix Foundation's tech support guy, she went up to the front desk.

That was when she noticed something was wrong. The phone at her desk, the one hardwired into the wall with an actual cord attaching it to the handset, wasn't picking up a dial tone. "Mac?" She asked. "Is your phone getting any signal?"

Mac fumbled with his phone, the lock screen a mess of yellow-framed numbers, and squinted at the icon in the corner of the screen. No signal. Mac shook his head, then stopped, feeling like he was going to vomit again. "No." He managed. "'something wrong?"

"Yes. We have to get out of here right now, guys." A man's voice said urgently. Gayle looked up to see Jack standing in the clinic's doorway, Riley not far behind. No sooner had they entered the room, but there was a beep as the building's intercom came online.

"ANNOUNCEMENT: THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION MAIN BUILDING HAS INITIATED LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE 3.5. PLEASE GET TO YOUR DESIGNATED LOCATIONS AND SHELTER IN PLACE. ALL DOORS ARE RFID ACCESS ONLY. REPEAT. THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION MAIN BUILDING-"

The intercom cut off suddenly, just before the lights cut out as well. Riley forced her shoe under the door as the electromagnet holding it open automatically released, bracing it in place. Unfortunately, before she could do anything else, there was a loud click sound, then another as the fire doors at each end of the hallway automatically closed and locked, shutting them in.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8:

1800: HR [125/TACHY], [RR 30], SPO2 99%

In the pitch dark of the basement, they waited for the emergency generator to kick on. Seconds went by, then minutes. The only light present was an eerie red glow from an emergency exit sign in the hallway. Mac stared at the scored lines in the ceiling and counted the seconds. Something was wrong. The generator should be working by now.

"Guys, I think whatever happened got to the generator too." Jack finally said, turning to face the group. A sense of dread fell over Mac with the words.

"Well shit, then." Gayle looked metaphorically upwards. "This is 'cause I said the 'Q' word last week isn't it?" She shook her head. She felt around on the desk for a second, coming up with an old yellow flashlight.

"How're you doing over here, Mac?" Gayle asked, cuing Jack and Riley to instantly turn their attention to MacGyver, who hadn't yet commented on the experience. Mac turned his head slowly towards them, inwardly cringing. He tried to ignore their concerned faces as he searched for an answer to the question. To be perfectly honest, he was doing crappy. Even moving his head felt like the room was swaying. Even after rinsing it, his mouth still tasted like vomit. It was all he could smell, and he felt like it was on him- sticking to him like the sweat that dried but then repopulated every time he tried to move and his stomach lurched.

"Okay." He deflected, hoping they couldn't see the bucket by his head. Gayle had cleaned it out- to his utter embarrassment- but it still told a tale. "What's going on out there?"

"We don't know." Riley started. "Systems started going down- the internet went out, phones, cell repeaters, then, well, power apparently. Looks like it tripped the emergency lockdown procedures."

"Thanks for telling us where you went, by the way, really helpful." Jack said sarcastically. "We searched about four labs before we got down here. By then the phones were out."

"Sorry." Mac said weakly.

"Well you'll have six hours to hear all about it." Riley said.

"Why six hours?" Gayle asked, concerned. Riley crossed her arms.

"Because Lockdown Procedure 3.5 is a containment strategy." Riley explained. "To keep things in the building if someone's trying to take them. Or, in another sense, to trap people in place to mitigate a threat. It's automatic if someone without a security dongle swipes into a sensitive part of the building. They get in and the building locks down- trapping them for building security to pick up."

"Yeah but why _six hours_?" Gayle asked again. Riley sighed.

"In order to shut it off, a party outside the building has to send a special radio signal to a receiver in the security office telling them they're in place to respond to the threat. That signal is the only thing that can release the doors, so if there's a hostage taken or someone's holding a gun to a security officer's head, they won't get their way. Unfortunately, the security office is effectively buried in about 10 feet of concrete, so that signal has to go through a repeater in order to be detected." She paused. "In the event that the power fails and the repeaters go down, there's a safety override that trips after 6 hours."

"And there's no other way out?" Gayle asked.

"Nothing short of chipping our way up through the ceiling." Riley explained.

"What if you hack your way through the doors one-by-one?" Jack said. Riley shook her head.

"The locks are technically mechanical, but the mechanism is embedded in the door itself- no access if you want to pick them manually. The only way to open them is with the electronic keypad. I'm good, Jack, but even I can't hack a computer if it's off."

"Okay, so, we're stuck here for a while." Jack said, turning toward Mac. "Not the first time that's happened. You wanna tell 'em about that time in wherever-istan during that raid? Didn't get out of that basement for days." Mac registered the question but the nausea was back with a vengeance. He was more focusing on not heaving more blood into the bucket.

"Mac?" Gayle prompted.

"Gimme a sec…" He forced out, swallowing hard against the acidic sensation in the back of his throat. He felt like if he moved, he was going to hurl, but if he didn't move, it would just get so bad he wouldn't be able to stop it anyway. Even though he'd just emptied his stomach, it felt like it was uncomfortably full. Sweat was all but pouring off him, soaking into his clothing and the bedding below.

He laid there for minutes that felt excruciatingly longer, knowing Gayle, Jack, and Riley all had their full attention on his struggle. The intense feeling of nausea thankfully subsided as he tried hard to slow his breathing, rewarded only with menacing patterns swirling around in his vision. The sense of fullness didn't fade, though, and that was worrying. He knew what was filling his stomach, and the sense of dread that accompanied that knowledge was not helping anything.

Gayle fought with herself as she went to get another blanket and washcloth for him. A sense of realization was dawning with her too. MacGyver was already in shock. The letter may have lead them all to believe he had another two days, but based on his vitals and the amount of blood he had already brought up, if no interventions were initiated really soon, he would bleed out before the lockdown lifted.

She placed the washcloth under the fawcett and turned the knob. The stream came out strong at first and then dwindled. "Really?" She muttered to herself. "Pumps must have been electric too." She said as she pulled a basin off the supply shelf and stuck it under the weak flow. If there was any water pressure left in the building, she wanted it.

"No water either?" Jack said. "Well this is just like wherever-istan, isn't it." Mac chuckled weakly at the remark.

"What did you two do there for water?" Gayle asked, trying to push back the uncomfortable conversation until she had something more concrete to say about things.

"This jackalope built a still." Jack said, cringing. "And not the good kind neither."

"Hopefully it won't get to that in the next 6 hours." Riley said, her face worried. "But Gayle, Mac's not looking good. You have any idea what's going on?"

Gayle covered Mac with another blanket and handed him the washcloth and cup again. "Do I have your permission to talk about your health in front of Jack and Riley?" She asked seriously, hands on her hips.

"Mm-hm." Mac consented warily. It was all he could do to swish the water around his mouth and spit it into the bucket without vomiting again. The world was spinning but he still desperately needed to hear what she was about to say. She watched him for a moment, as if wondering if he was about to change his mind.

"In that case, you're right, Riley, he's not looking good." Gayle started. "His heart rate is too high, his blood pressure's low, and he's bleeding, badly, into his stomach." She said. "If I had to bet, I'd say the poison was making his body unable to clot blood. He might have lasted the 72 hours if he hadn't started bleeding, but now that he is, he's on a clock."

"How much time's on that clock?" Riley asked.

"I can't answer that." Gayle shook her head matter of factly as she pulled the emergency bag off its hook on the wall, and set it on the bed next to Mac's. "I'm going to put the bed completely flat, then start an IV and get some fluids into you." She explained quickly, trying to change the subject. He looked at her, worried, as she cracked open a very dusty binder of emergency protocols. "If you-"

"You can answer it." He said. Gayle stopped.

"You're right." She said finally. "But I'm not going to. You'll thank me when this is all over." She dug into the bag, coming up with an IV start kit, tubing, and bag of fluids, which she set between Mac's legs on the blankets. "Arm" She demanded, pulling back the covers just enough for Mac to move his arm over them.

"Hold up now." Jack said, piecing things together. "You sayin what I think you're saying?"

"Hold this." She said, handing the flashlight to Jack. it had been a good three years since she'd put in an IV, probably 6 since she'd placed one in the dark on someone as anticoagulated as Mac was. She regretted the drama she'd accidentally stepped into with her comments, but she needed to focus. Fortunately, Mac had excellent veins, even for his blood pressure. "Fluids aren't going to solve the problem. At the end of the day you're still low on blood and still losing more. But it will give us a little bit of a buffer and hopefully make you feel a little better until we can figure some things out." She explained.

"All for it." Mac said. He was sweating again, and almost shivering despite the blankets, staring straight at the ceiling and trying to make the blood stay in his stomach. He hated being so quiet, barely able to say a couple of words at a stretch. He wanted to help. Things felt so urgent, even as slow and controlled as Gayle seemed to be going. He couldn't place it, but he also couldn't bring himself to speak or banter with Jack or do anything to lighten the mood or even help with the technical aspect. Heck, he wasn't sure if he could stand or fight off a threat, which was the real point at which he knew something was seriously wrong.

"Okay, poke." He felt the needle enter his arm, felt her move it sideways and a sharper poke that almost made him move his arm out of the way. "I'm in." Gayle said unnecessarily, letting out a breath as she collected a tube of Mac's blood from the fresh IV, attached a pigtail and flushed the line, covered it in a clear plastic film, and capped it. She let his arm go and took a few seconds to spike the bag and prime the line and then attached the whole setup to Mac's IV.

"Okay, now I need a volunteer."


	9. Chapter 9

Both Jack and Riley's hands went up immediately. "What do we have to do?" Jack asked.

"First of all, I'd like to be clear that this is a horrible idea and probably the shadiest thing I've ever done in my career. So if either of you catch yourself thinking of breathing a word of it to the California Board of Nursing, just remember- you're doing this voluntarily and I know how to kill you without anyone figuring out what happened." With that off her chest, Gayle twisted a length of masking tape into a short cord and secured it to the end of the closed tube containing Mac's blood.

"On second thought, I didn't say that last part." She said, figuring practicing medicine without a license was enough of a felony was enough without threatening to murder two government agents.

And she wasn't going to do it anyway, she decided. This was all just in case there was no other possible way to save him. Because, in all likelihood, it would kill Mac and irreparably terminate her license. But if she was willing to go to the last minute before trying it, she had to be willing and able to commit to it if and when the time came.

 _Goddammit._

Riley and Jack still looked at her expectantly. "Is there any possible way out of here?" She tried one last time. "Or any possible, even _remote_ way we can call for help?" She said. Behind her, Mac shifted.

"You…" He started. Everyone turned to give him their full attention. "The r'peater antenna." He stopped to take a couple of breaths. "Take off the cover and strip the wires coming out of the ceiling. Hold one of them against your phone's antenna... might…" He stopped, gripping the edge of the cot, his knuckles white, eyes screwed shut for a moment. His face was the greyish kind of pale that made Gayle want to move the AED a little closer to him. She watched him throw up another stomach full of blood into the bucket. Even in the dark of the room, she could tell it was brighter than last time. Smelled more like fresh blood than coffee ground vomit. Shit. She looked at her watch as she handed Mac another towel and helped him wash out his mouth.

"You get that, Riley?" Gayle asked urgently. Riley was staring at Mac with a look of horror on her face. Gayle noticed she wasn't moving. She let her eyes soften slightly. "That was really intense, what you just saw, and its okay to be really freaked out right now." Gayle said, turning down the intensity as much as she could. "But real talk: if you want Mac to live you need to do what he said, okay?" Riley blinked, nodding again as she took her phone out of her pocket.

Confident that Riley had a mission to complete, Gayle turned to Jack. "I need you to spin this as hard and fast as you can without stopping for like 5 minutes." She instructed, handing him the tube of Mac's blood with the tape attached. Jack looked unsure. Gayle widened her eyes at him.

"Will do."

Gayle replaced the nearly empty IV bag with a fresh one, then cycled the dynamap again.

1830: HR [ERROR], [RR 33], SPO2 [ERROR] BP [[75/38 !HYPO]]

Crap. She looked at Mac's phone, which didn't paint a much better picture. The ECG was still reading, even though his blood pressure was too low to read a pulse. Via the ECG Mac's heart rate was 145 and climbing. He'd dropped the towel to the floor.

"Mac?" She asked urgently. His eyes opened briefly, then fluttered shut without a word.

By her estimate, he'd probably brought up 1,500 ml of blood in vomit so far, and was likely bleeding in other places too. He would code if he lost much more blood.

"Any luck, Riley?" She asked urgently. Riley was standing on a chair in the corner of the room. Flashlight in her mouth, the cover for the repeater on the shelf below. She was working through a tangle of wires emanating from a hole in the ceiling.

"I just checked the last one." She said, she said looking mortified. Gayle looked at her expectantly. Something. Anything. Please. She didn't want to have to do this.

"And?"

"And its not going to work, Gayle." Gayle's face fell.

"Okay." She said, nodding. "Okay, well, um." He was 100% going to die if she didn't do this. Very soon. Without medical direction. They'd finally reached that point. Fuck.

"What do we do, then?" Jack's words hung in the air.

"Remember when I said I thought the poison was making it hard for Mac to clot blood?"

"Yeah?" Riley said.

"Well, um, based on how long it took to do that, I think its a kind of warfarin." Gayle explained. Part of her was stalling, and she knew it, but it needed to be explained.

"Let's pretend I have no idea what that means." Jack said.

"Well you have a bunch of different proteins and chemicals in your blood that all need to be working in order for you to clot blood. Warfarins interfere with the ability to make a few of them, and over time you run out of those." She said, taking a deep breath and cringing inwardly. "The time it took for Mac to start bleeding is about that amount of time." She watched Mac's chest rise and fall a couple of times as she quickly finished her explanation. "Basically speaking, he's going to keep bleeding until he gets some of those proteins and chemicals back into his system."

"And so we're going to have to give him some, right? That's why you asked for volunteers." Riley said.

"How?" Jack asked. He stopped spinning the tube.

"Those chemicals- they're in your blood, or Riley's blood, or my blood." She said. "We transfuse some of that into him, it'll both help plug the leaks and give him a few more blood cells to work with. I'm just hoping one of us is compatible."

"How do we figure that out?"

"According to your files, both of you could give blood to Mac. I'm not, but I'll test mine anyway. They say up to 11% of listed blood types are wrong in employee files and dog tags. That's why they do a bunch of testing before transfusing any blood to a recipient."

"And that's all testing you can do, right?" Riley said.

"Technically no."

"Un-technically?" Jack prompted.

"We're gonna find out."

Gayle had done some work in some really rural parts of South America prior to coming to the Phoenix Foundation. Places where medical labs were virtually non-existent. That didn't mean people needed health care any less, just that a lot more things were eyeballed and sometimes she and the other health workers had had to improvise.

Gayle's desk was made of glass that was frosted on the underside. She marked out a long rectangle with masking tape, then separated it into three sections and cleaned the sections with alcohol, labelling them "R" "J" and "G" respectively. "I need a few drops of each of your blood in your space." She said.

She took a lancet out of the blood sugar kit and pierced her finger with it, then dropped a few drops of her blood in the space labelled "G". "Like that." She looked over at Jack. "Can I have the tube?" Jack handed it over to her. She shined a flashlight through it. On top, there was a thin layer of clear fluid. Jack wasn't the perfect replacement for a centrifuge, but there was enough for a couple drops in each space. She used a syringe to transfer a minute amount of Mac's serum onto her blood, then mixed it with a toothpick.

She repeated the process with Jack's blood, then Riley's. When she was finished, she placed the flashlight under her blood mixture. Tiny clumps were already visible. "For clarification, we're looking for that not to happen." She set a timer for four minutes. During the time, she took Mac's vitals manually.

1845: HR 148, RR 33, BP 74/38. Skin was the same, and he'd barely moved when she shook his shoulder this time.

Only 15 minutes had gone by. Another half liter of fluid had gone in, barely managing to hold his vitals steady. Vitals that already weren't particularly compatible with life. She crossed her fingers as she placed the flashlight under Jack's blood. It had clumped. She looked at Riley's.

It hadn't. Just a thin, orange-pink stain on the glass surface. Riley would be her donor.

"Riley, is there any other reason, any at all, that you couldn't give Mac blood?" Gayle asked seriously. Part of her wanted Riley to say she couldn't. It would make the decision a lot easier. She shook her head.

"I gave blood a couple months ago, they said I was fine." Riley said. That was exactly what Gayle wanted to hear.

"Are you personally okay to give blood to Mac?" She asked. Riley nodded. "Even at the risk of you losing about the same amount of blood you would during a typical donation?"

"Yes." Riley agreed.

"Okay. Go ahead and lay on the cot next to Mac. The one that doesn't have the stuff on it."

Gayle rummaged in her kit for the largest bore butterfly needle she had and pulled a 60ml syringe out of the emergency kit. This was shaping up to be just as improvised and horrible as she imagined it would, she thought as she removed the tube end of the butterfly needle and attached it to a standard IV connector cap. By some act of God, they connected to each other.

She couldn't believe she was doing this. She wracked her brain for any possible other solution to the problem. She came up empty.

"All right, this is going to be like donating blood, but I'm going to basically fill this syringe, inject it into Mac, then fill it again. I'll do that about 6 times, or until either of you start having problems." Gayle explained as she took Riley's vitals. Luckily, Riley had decent veins. She managed to get the butterfly into a large vein in the inside of Riley's elbow and taped it in place. She cheered internally as she was able to slowly pull blood into the syringe without blowing the vein.

After what seemed like ages, the syringe was full. "Still doing okay?" Gayle asked Riley. The last thing she needed was for Riley to have problems too. Riley nodded. Jack took her other hand.

"Keep going."

Gayle put the SPO2 clip on Mac's ear, grateful when an intermittent number came up on the dynamap screen. It blinked in the 150s now, with an SPO2 of 89%. Gayle clamped and disconnected the fluids from Mac's IV, and connected the syringe instead. Slowly, she injected the blood. 60ml in 10 minutes was probably faster than was safe given the situation, and she watched the dynamap screen like a hawk. No change.

She went back to Riley, took an additional 60 ml. Checked that Riley was alright. Injected it into Mac.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Gayle injected the last syringeful of blood into Mac. She hooked the bag of saline back up to him and took another full set of vitals. Listened to his lung fields.

1930: HR 142, RR 28, BP 80/42, SPO2 92%. Lung fields were clear. In the glow of the flashlight, Mac was still deathly pale, but no longer grey.

"Riley, you still doing okay?" Gayle said.

"I'm fine." Riley said resolutely. She looked pale and was lying flat against the cot. "Those don't look too different. You can take more if he needs it." She said, concerned but resolute.

Gayle shook her head. The fact that it was an hour later and Mac was still breathing was enough to say the action had worked. And, by some miracle, no one had died. She wasn't pushing her luck. "No, you just stay where you are and relax. You did great." Gayle said as she removed the needle from Riley's arm and re-took her vitals. Still within normal limits. Gayle let out a sigh.

There were still nearly 4 hours to go, but people were stable. Gayle rolled her office chair between the two cots and crossed her arms. It was late, and in 4 hours she would probably be fired and arrested, and after a few months of arduous hearings in front of the California Board of Nursing she would probably lose her license. For the moment, though, and until she let herself think seriously about what actually could have happened instead, she was confident she had done the right thing. And that was probably enough for now.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10: A GOOD STORY

2330: HR 125, RR 24, BP 85/48, Skin pale and cool but moving in the right direction.

Gayle tried not to think about what could have happened tonight as she watched Mac and Riley sleep. For the last couple of hours, on what felt like borrowed time, she had listened to Jack tell Riley increasingly ridiculous stories about other times they'd (usually him and Mac) almost died in the field. For a while, they were almost enough to distract her. And then Riley had finally fallen asleep, and Jack had quieted, resting his hand on hers as he leaned a chair against the cement wall and settled in for the haul of the last few hours.

The time passed mostly in silence. Gayle checked Mac and Riley periodically. The dynamap battery had crapped out on her around hour 4 and she was back to taking manual vitals. Which was fine, she supposed, she needed the practice.

At 0035, there was a sudden click and a buzz. Less than a minute later, the lights blinked pragmatically back to life. She'd been sitting on an office chair, leaning against Mac's cot and wondering how she'd ever gotten through rotating shifts in the old days.

Blinking, she groped for her cell phone in her pocket. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden light, her face fell again, noting the reception necessary to dial 911 was still lacking.

"Huh?" Jack had jerked awake to the sound of the doors unlocking but had somehow managed to stay on his chair.

"Go upstairs, now, get EMS in here as soon as possible." She ordered a mildly confused Jack. He rose slowly, his face anxiously turned towards Mac.

"How's Mac doing?" He asked.

"He's still alive, but he needs a hospital, like, four hours ago."

"Copy." Jack said, nodding and bolting out of the door. Gayle turned back toward Mac. She was glad, in a way, that she'd not been able to see this much of his skin color in the darkness. He looked worse than even she realized, and that was _after_ the improvised unit of blood. Though, to be honest, he'd probably lost at least that much before he'd been able to clot off whatever was bleeding.

"Mac, how are you doing over here, man?" She said, eliciting a brief moan from the agent when she pressed her knuckles into his chest. Not great, but she'd take it. She took vitals again, noting that they'd remained crappy-but-stable for long enough she was confident he'd make it to the hospital breathing.

"He okay?" Riley asked, climbing off her own cot and squinting in the unnecessarily bright light.

Gayle thought about saying no. It was the truth, but she hedged with a weary "maybe." There was a lot that could still have gone wrong. Four hours without adequate blood flow, especially given his mental status and lack of urine output in the last 6 hours, meant a solid possibility of brain and kidney damage. And that was if something didn't go screwy with his electrolytes and kill him before those things became apparent. He'd survived the lockdown, but still needed a lot if he was going to survive past the night.

Riley sat in Gayle's vacated chair. She looked a little pale herself and though it was probably just a combination of the stress and lack of sleep, she would recommend the young hacker get herself checked out as well. Gayle turned away from Mac for a minute and tried to mentally compose a report for the medics.

No matter how she sliced it, she would be asking them to check her work. To make sure she hadn't killed Mac. Which, yes, was what anyone and everyone was there to do in medicine. Heck, when she'd worked hospital, half the job had been to make sure the residents put in the orders they'd meant to and failed to outright kill anyone. But just because the work got checked and the patient lived didn't mean no one got punished for it. And given what she'd done, she'd be lucky if she ever worked again, let alone in healthcare.

She'd pulled him through. She berated herself on that fact. He would have died. Bled out in front of her if she hadn't done anything. And that should have been enough to justify it. But what she'd done could have killed him too, and that was every reason she was standing there worried about her own future.

Better go out giving someone a good story, she figured, and turned back to her patient.

Less than five minutes after the power had come back online, a small crowd of tired Phoenix Foundation employees began emerging from their labs and offices. Jack pushed his way through the group, beelining toward the flashing red and blue lights outside that signaled help.

Just in front of the building, a half dozen police cars were parked with lights flashing in the darkened parking lot. Matty stood off to the side, supervising what appeared to be the arrest of a man in a Phoenix lab coat, her arms folded in the full-body disappointment scowl she was famous for. Jack himself wanted to do more than arrest the guy, (even though, he noted smugly, it looked like someone had already taken offense to his nose- he couldn't wait to hear how that had played out) but he had bigger fish to fry cleaning up what had to be the result of the man's actions.

An ambulance idled at the end of the line of emergency vehicles. Jack rushed over, getting the attention of the EMS personnel who stood alongside it. He found he wasn't all that effective in explaining exactly what happened, but he was able to give a general location and a room number, which they seemed to appreciate.

He was about to follow them back inside when Matty caught up with him. "Jack!" She said, her tone more irritated than anything. In her eyes, though, Jack sensed an undercurrent of worry.

"What the hell happened here tonight?" Jack asked. "Who's he?" He pointed to the man in the back of the cop car.

"Bradley Roswell." Matty said, detest evident in her voice. "Doesn't work here and probably won't last long in prison." She turned to look briefly in the direction of the paramedics. "Looking at that I'm not sure how much help I'm planning to give him in that regard. Are you going to tell me what happened to Mac or do I have to guess?"

"I'm not totally sure, but it was scary." Jack said.

"But he's still alive?"

"Wha-? Oh, yeah, takes more than- well, whatever it was- to kill Mac." Jack said uneasily. Matty started towards the building at a clipped pace. Jack followed after her.

"Sawyer!" Gayle recognized the voice and turned slowly, hands on hips, stifling a relieved smile.

"Gisom." She acknowledged, nodding at the older of the two medics. "Thought you'd've retired by now."

"Pssh, and done what? Got myself a BSN and an office job?" Gayle shot him a wry laugh.

"You at least going to introduce your partner before you insult me in front of him?" The other man, younger and far more slightly built, leaned in with a handshake.

"Kinnly."

"Good to meet you. Sorry you have to ride with this hellhound." Gayle said, turning back to MacGyver. "And don't knock the occupational health life. I got stories of this place that would make your hair curl if you had one left, Gisom, and tonight's one of them."

"I'm all ears, kiddo."

"Gather round, then, boys, and meet the office troublemaker. Name's MacGyver. Mac's a 27 year old male, intoxicated with an unknown substance intramuscularly about 31 hours ago. Since then he presented with worsening nausea and coffee ground emesis, with EBL in the 1500ml range. Mental status suddenly worsened- he's responsive to pain- and vital signs trended to shitty approximately 4 hours ago. Blood pressure's been holding in the 80's with a heart rate in the 140s. Repositioned, placed on oxygen 3L NC and bolused x2L IV NS with no improvement." Gayle paused while Kinnly took a set of vitals and Gisom did his own assessment. "Here's where the story starts, though. As you know we were in lockdown since about 6 hours ago. He was bleeding out internally because, I'm guessing, something in the toxin was an anticoagulant."

Kinnly seemed to get where this was going before Gisom did. "You didn't…" Gayle cringed.

"Hey, I figure I'm going to lose my license over it eventually and I'm at peace with that," She sighed, resigned to her fate. "So if I find either of you covering my ass I'm taking you down myself. But yeah. Riley Davis was a match and we were able to transfuse approximately 360ml of blood from her into Mac. By some miracle both of them are still breathing. I'm relying on you two to keep it that way, any questions?"

Jack and Riley followed the medics out to the ambulance, and, she figured, all the way to the hospital assuming Matty hadn't caught them first demanding a report. Gayle herself stayed back in the infirmary to clean up and take inventory.

The place reeked of sweat and body odor and blood and emesis. Now under the fluorescent lights, wrappers and disposable plastic bits littered the floor. Gayle found herself shaking as she swept the remnants of the previous six hours' intensity into a dustpan, disposed of any remaining sharps and biohazards appropriately, wiped down the cots with industrial antiseptic wipes and cleaned the bathroom and bucket. Next she inventoried the emergency kit, replaced what was missing from the back shelves, and tested the AED.

In less than a half hour, the only remaining sign of the craziness they'd all just lived through was a few post-it reminders on her desk computer to reorder IV start kits and exchange the oxygen tank. She thought about how, in a hospital setting, another patient would soon be inhabiting that bed, utterly oblivious to what had just transpired.

She figured, if anything needed written down, she wouldn't want to leave it to the morning. The computer was back online, and wearily, she logged in and began to type the longest encounter report she'd completed since starting at the Phoenix foundation. Documenting every moment that had transpired since the first time Matty had called her to say MacGyver was on his way to the medics leaving with Mac on a stretcher. She tried to make it look like she had legitimate reasons for her actions, but when it was all said and done, nothing she could say would stop her losing at the least her job and at the most her licenses and freedom.

It was closing on 0200 by the time Matty knocked on the door. She too looked as tired as Gayle felt, and very honestly, Gayle hadn't expected her to still be in the building. Whatever had happened, she had been worked to the bone over it too.

Gayle hit complete on the report and leaned back in her chair. She'd really wanted to go home after the report, but if she had to face the music, it would be worth getting it over with tonight rather than spending the night worrying about it. Matty dragged a chair over to Gayle's desk and sat in it.

"I just got word from Riley at the hospital." Matty started. Gayle quietly held her breath. "He's in the ED now and they're planning to transfer him to a floor for a few days once a bed becomes available. They think he'll be alright once he gets a little more blood in him and they can fully reverse the anticoagulation." Gayle smiled tiredly. Mac was alive. At least part of her fears were relieved by that. Matty leaned in slightly. "Would I be right in saying you had a part in that?"

The question didn't exactly catch Gayle by surprise. She knew where Matty was going with that line of questioning. "Yes." She said.

"And you feel as though you acted in a manner appropriate for the situation?" Gayle hesitated. Officially, the answer was no. Absufreakinlutely not. MacGyver would have had to weather the blood loss alone- be the result life, death, or permanent disability. And there were reasons for that that Gayle wholeheartedly agreed to. She'd been working on half information. No one had trained or certified her to improvise a blood donation under extremely austere conditions. No one had given her medical direction to do it. There was no entity that had taken legal or medical responsibility for her ability to do what she'd done.

Had Mac died from getting someone else's blood injected into him, that would have been murder. Had he not died, that was still attempted murder. Gayle took a breath. The question was not had she acted in accordance with her license and law. The question was if her actions matched the severity of the situation. Would Mac have died without her intervention? Yes, almost certainly. Did she do something of equal threat to his life? Definitely. But that threat that had, in the end, worked.

"Yes." She confirmed.

Matty nodded. "You're nervous." She noted aloud.

Gayle scrubbed her face with her hands. "Yeah." She agreed.

"Well, I'm sure glad someone still is." Gayle frowned. Matty leaned forward a little more tenderly than usual. "Listen, in all the hundreds of missions MacGyver has run for the Phoenix Foundation, I think I can count on one hand how many times he or Jack actually acted in accordance with something resembling their explicitly written protocols."

"Now, myself and Director Thornton before me, and many other directors before her, we've more or less agreed to take a pretty steep risk letting our agents get away with that. On one hand, a lot of people are alive because of it. On the other, we've had to answer to some pretty big names for the... _misadventures_ of some of our people." Matty paused. "We take that risk ourselves, personally and as the face of the Phoenix Foundation, so people like MacGyver can improvise otherwise untested solutions to problems. So people like Riley can break into systems without clearance and so people like Jack can use unconventional tactics to keep everyone safe while they do what they do."

A small ray of hope flickered in Gayle's chest. "What are you saying, exactly?"

"I'm saying… well, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud at all," Matty rolled her eyes. "To be perfectly honest, no one in this organization has needed it spelled out this explicitly, but… if there's a risk you need to take, for a legitimate reason, we aren't new to the idea of covering some methods up." Gayle looked up.

"As in?" She asked.

"As in, MacGyver's medical records, print and electronic, have been sealed above top secret and all persons involved in his care are being sworn to secrecy as we speak. As far as anyone is concerned, you acted within your scope and protocols and MacGyver lived despite it."

Gayle wanted to dispute it. Wanted to argue how dangerous and reckless and stupid that was for an organization to operate like that. But, also, she didn't. "Thank you."

"For what?" Matty smirked, then hopped off her chair and walked out of the infirmary, leaving Gayle to realize what the hell had just happened.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11: Epilogue

Two Days Later, 1100: Temp 98.8F, BP 119/70, HR 82, RR 18, SPO2 100%

Once MacGyver had fully woken up, he'd not been able to sleep for two days. It had taken 6 more units to get his blood counts high enough to be stable. Then came vitals, blood draws, overhead pages, bad food, people wailing and fighting in other rooms, and a thousand other sounds and smells and sensations of hospital life. Mac had to admit it had been interesting at first but had quickly devolved into him just wanting to go home and take a nap. He was exhausted, covered in bruises, and overall miserable.

But, also, not dead. A step up from how he would otherwise be.

He woke in darkness, raising his head up shakily from the couch. "Wakey wakey sleeping beauty." Mac's insides twisted horribly before he realized it was Jack's voice in the dark room.

"Please never, ever say that again." Mac grumbled. He pushed himself to sitting and stretched gingerly, feeling the bruises dotting his arms and torso all over again.

"Or, you could try, 'thanks ol buddy for making sure I was breathing the whole time I was passed the hell out on your couch.'" Jack said good naturedly.

Mac groaned. His mouth felt like cotton and a weird, gross feeling reminded him he hadn't showered since the hotel. He still smelled like hospital and he had to pee so bad his bladder felt like it was about to explode. "How long did I sleep?"

Jack looked at his watch. "You were rounding 19 hours." Mac did the math in his head. He barely remembered climbing out of Jack's car after getting out of the hospital, but guessed that had to have been sometime around noon. So, 0700. He squinted at the clock on the microwave- 0717. "If you didn't wake up soon I was gonna wake you up myself- make you drink something." Jack looked proud of his nursing forethought as he filled a glass with water and brought it over to Mac.

Jack looked tired himself, Mac realized. The fact he was awake this early at all, when Matty must have given him some time off to take care of Mac, was astonishing. Mac felt a little guilty- Jack must have been up a good chunk of the night. Watching him breathe, apparently. There was a good rib in that somewhere but Mac decided to spare his intrepid caregiver.

Mac gulped the water, which tasted amazing. He got up stiffly to get himself another glass but the room spun weirdly. Jack caught him as he swayed. "Take it easy, kid." Mac swallowed, steadying himself. He couldn't believe all this had come from a crappy syringe dart less than a week earlier.

An hour later, bladder voided, body showered, and hair pushed, Mac felt almost new. Well, more like he'd stayed up all night, eaten a granola bar for breakfast, and then taken a crappy nap on a plane, but new all the same. When he got out of the shower, he smelled something burning in the kitchen.

Jack was making food? Mac had never once seen Jack cook in his life. Well, he'd seen him heat up an MRE a couple of times, but had always envisioned him otherwise living off of delivery pizza, beer, cold cereal, and peanut butter sandwiches. Something he was sure, if pressed, Jack would proclaim were the five food groups.

But apparently, today Jack was stepping up to the challenge. Jack and Riley and Gayle, to be precise.

And damn, he was thankful Riley was on egg duty while Jack manned the toaster.

"How are you doing, Mac?" Gayle asked, turning a sloppy pancake over in a pan awkwardly, as though the job had been handed to her mere seconds ago and without her permission. A jump bag with the Phoenix Foundation logo sat by the door, making Mac wonder if Matty had ordered her to go make sure Jack was taking care of him correctly. That made him feel even more … guilty, maybe? That was a lot of Phoenix resources spent on him when all he really needed was more sleep...

"Not dead, thanks to you." Was all Mac's still-groggy brain could produce.

"Eh, first license-threatening blood transfusion's free, the next one you'll have to do a lot of garden work to cover." She said, winking.

But, in a way, he was grateful. Even if there was no danger, it was nice to have his friends here. And it being sanctioned by their boss who almost certainly knew he was mostly fine made it even better. Contrary to popular belief, Matty knew how to balance hardassery with employee wellbeing. If something major and bomb-y came up, all bets were off, but for now, it seemed she would be okay with a few days off with people he'd weathered yet another hell with.

He settled into the idea as they all sat on Jack's couch and popped in the first of a passionately curated collection of Bruce Willis's greatest hits


End file.
